How did they do it?!

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August 16th, almost kick off time. Vick has bowed out
due to too much med school preparation. Tony and Russ are in
altitude prep mode up in the mountains and Hans is fast returning
from the Denver Outdoor Retailer show. Stay tuned.....

August 17, late afternoon -- Hans
has arranged rendezvouz with Trip to load up paragliders, two ton
bag of carrots, kilo of parmesan and a palette of Advil. They're
almost ready but not quite. Trip has still to load more
provisions. Russ and Tony still need to acclimate to altitude,
and Hans still has to get to the mountains.

August 18 - Kava Coffee Shop in
Bishop, CA, famous hiker/climber hangout and purveyor of fine
grounds, has signed up as sponsor. All you Kava devotees out
there can email them at Kavapublic@telis.org and let them know
how they great they are for supporting our sport(s).

August 19 - Left the car at 5:36
a.m. and topped out on Mt. Tyndall at 12:33 p.m. All are tired
and everyone's legs ache.

August 20th - In the last 20
hours, (20:10 to be exact), the madmen have logged 32 miles and
gained 20,100 feet in altitude. They've hiked two mountains,
consumed a dozen Power Gels among them and veritable poundages of
trail mix. Spirits are still high.

Still August 20 - The athletes
have just climbed Middle Palisade. Car-to-car time: 8:36 for
Hans, Russ 10 minutes behind, Tony took a 1500 ft 4th class
detour and looks like he'll get 3 hours sleep before the big
Whitney day. They started a little before 11 a.m - not an Alpine
start! All are completely "knackered."

August 21st - More than a few
peaks later (Russell, Whitney, Keeler and Muir), the phone
updates are getting garbled at best. These guys are spent. Tony,
suffering from sleep deprivation, gave himself a self-imposed
bivy at Iceberg. He'll catch up with Russ and Hans once he's
caught up on his much needed sleep. All said, no one is hurt,
everyone is tired, a rock fell and missed every single one of
them. Can't expect more good news than that, can you? Russ and
Hans bag Russel, Whitney, Muir, ( and Keeler as a quick little 15
minute "treat" along the trail).

August 22 - The guys are resting
and hanging out at Kava's in Bishop. Russ is thinking about
locating a doctor for a Cortisone shot for his knee. The big
topic is food and rest right now. All are well.

August 23 - The toys came out
today on White Mountain. Starting out at 6:30 a.m., Hans hit the
trails on a mountain bike and Russ slogged up the trails. Tony
caught up on sleep once again. Hans and Russ summited in about
three hours. Russ considered making his first-ever paraglide
launch from the summit but serious winds made him re-think the
idea. Instead, he hiked down to a saddle below the summit and
launched from there. He had a 30-minute ride down and landed in
an alfafa field in Owens Valley where Trip, the trusty Pacific
Ceiling Tour chauffeur, met him. Hans barrelled down the mountain
on his bike in what he called a "controlled fall." Hans
made it to the car by 2:15 where he met a very relieved Russ, who
had been hanging out and waiting for hours. At 4:00 p.m., Tony
was reported to be on the mountain and attempting the first
downhill offroad in-line skate descent. No word on his progress
as of this writing.

Tomorrow the team will hit the Palisades
where they plan to summit five peaks in a day. The Palisades
Traverse will mark the most technical hiking of the tour.

August 24 - Five peaks
successfully summited. All went well with the exception of the
cameraman throwing up in the plane as they flew over the athletes
to film their exploits. Hans, Tony and Russ started out at 5:36
a.m. to climb Mt. Sill. They did the Swiss Arete and traversed
over to Polemonium Peak, then to North Palisade, over to
Starlight Peak, and finally Thunderbolt. By 12:40 a.m., the crew
had hobbled back to the car.

August 25 - Tony and Hans did a
painful slog up Mt. Langley, a 21-mile round trip. This is what
they consider a "rest day." Russ goes to see the doc,
finds out he has a bone tumor in his right chin and no real help
for his knifeblade pain on his left ACL. What the heck - received
a cortisone shot and an aspirin lolipop. He's icing it and taking
it easy today. -Well.. he went "kiting" his new Funiac
paraglyder at the local football field.

August 26th - Russ sucks it up
and heads to Langley hoping for fair winds to descend via the
Airtime paraglyding way. Bad winds, poor take off, and landing
zones make him bail and he does it the old fashioned way. No
worries on knee and joint impact - he's got a cortizone shot!
Mean-while Hans and Tony are running up Split mountain getting
the trail beta in hopes that Russ can use it to pull off a double
header today. (little did they know that his paraglyder descent
plans on Langley were foiled)

August 27th - Russ plays catch
up, running up Split in 4 hours and 19 minutes. Slamming Tony and
Hans' time of 5:19. Everyone on the crew packs up and drives into
the night towards Shasta. Hans and Tony taking 30 minute shifts
till 2 am. Russ not arriving until 5 am with crew captain Trip at
the wheel.

August 28th - The team started up
from the Shasta parking lot at a liesurely 7:50 am. They all
three topped out 5 hours and 30 minutes later. Hans with a
snowboard on his back until the last 150 ft of rock scree, Russ
and Tony were smart enough to leave their Salomon Snowblades and
Bigfoot skis down near Helen lake. The sun cups were horendous
and Hans's attempt at snowboarding them was feeble at best. Lower
down the mini skis got in a few runs where the snow was softer.
The three returned to the car around 4:30 pm. Making their
California 14ers tour complete! Stop the clock!